BOXING
Boxer dies after fight
A 23-year-old Australian boxer died on Monday in Brisbane, Australia, two days after losing consciousness after losing a 10-round featherweight bout. Family spokesman James O’Shea confirmed Braydon Smith, who was in the final year of a law degree, had been in an induced coma at a Brisbane hospital since collapsing 90 minutes after a WBC Asian Boxing Council continental title bout with John Moralde of the Philippines on Saturday. Smith lost in a unanimous points decision, before praising his opponent and congratulating Moralde on the win and then returning to his dressing room. O’Shea said Smith was alert and talkative immediately following the bout before collapsing.
SOCCER
Fans injure 112 police
Berlin-based FC Union are set to be heavily fined by the German Football Association (DFB) after 175 fans were arrested and 112 officers injured in rioting during a reserve match. The fourth-division match at Union’s Alte Foersterei ground in east Berlin against archrivals Dynamo Berlin had to be held up for 15 minutes as a group of 300 Union fans tried to force their way into the away team’s fan block on Sunday. Stewards and police intervened, but were attacked by the fans, who were driven back with pepper spray and batons. There is bad blood between Berlin’s former top two East German sides, who have fallen from grace, with Dynamo now in the regional league, while Union’s first team play in Germany’s second tier. Police confirmed that 64 supporters have been charged with a crimes including breach of the peace, assault, resisting arrest, criminal damage and insulting officers. “Every injured person is one too many and each offender identified by police will have to answer for his actions,” a Union spokesman said after Dynamo won 1-0.
SOCCER
Cordoba fire coach Djukic
Miroslav Djukic’s tenure as coach of La Liga’s bottom side Cordoba came to an end after less than five months on Monday when he was fired. “Cordoba F.C. have this afternoon sacked first-team coach Miroslav Djukic,” the club said in statement on Monday. Youth team coach Jose Antonio Romero is to take charge until a successor is found for 49-year-old Djukic. The Andalusians sit seven points off safety in their first season in the top flight for 43 years having lost their last eight games. Former Chelsea and Barcelona defender Albert Ferrer was also fired earlier in the campaign, despite leading the side to promotion last season.
BASEBALL
Rose seeks reinstatement
Pete Rose has requested that his lifetime ban from Major League Baseball be lifted and new commissioner Rob Manfred said he will take it under consideration. Manfred, speaking to reporters at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring training camp, said he received a formal reinstatement request from Rose, the sport’s all-time leader with 4,256 hits. Manfred, who in January succeeded Bud Selig as baseball’s 10th commissioner, said he would talk with Rose’s representatives about the request. Rose, 73, was suspended in 1989 by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti after an investigation found he bet on baseball, including on the Cincinnati Reds during the 1985-1987 seasons while he was the team’s manager. The ruling made Rose ineligible for the Hall of Fame. After 15 years of denying that he bet on baseball, Rose said in his 2004 book, My Prison Without Bars, that he confessed to Selig while seeking to have the ban lifted. He has had previous reinstatement requests denied.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later